Betrayal By A Saviour
by Amadelia
Summary: Juri is once again faced with the pain that Shiori brings to her when a cryptic message from Ends of the World arrives.
1. Desecrate My Being

One of the cruelest ironies of life, she supposed, was that the world did not, in fact, revolve around her. And when it did, it was painful...Ends of the World would never have any miraculous happiness planned for her; there were no miracles. All that she tended to receive from the messages from Ends of the World was pain. There would never be ordained happiness for her...but if there was...oh the possibilities! A wry smile crossed her serene face as she sat, twirling an orange curl around her finger, back facing the rest of the student council.  
  
"Well, that's not clean," Touga muttered with a short laugh. Miki looked at him curiously with bright blue eyes, completely innocent and devoid of guile.  
  
Juri whirled around to see Touga's eyes staring into what had been the back of her head, as though he could see what she was thinking. She glared at him, he looked away, unable to control the natural response to the enmity that leaked through any gaze that she threw at practically everybody.  
  
"You know, Juri, we were asking you about what you thought about the latest message from Ends of the World, and are still awaiting a response."  
  
Juri continued to glare, her green eyes flaming more at the disruption from her pleasurable thoughts than at the fact that Touga seemed to be able to see them as well.  
  
Miki looked at her, now, ran a hand through his short, light blue hair, then clamped the fingers of his other hand down on the button of his stopwatch. Glanced at it. Put it back into the pocket that lay in the creases of his school uniform.  
  
As Juri seemed not to be in the mood to yield to any more distractions, Miki began cautiously. "Ah, Juri-sama?" Her gaze whipped to him, he only flinched slightly, and then gathered enough strength to venture on timidly. "Juri...have you given enough thought to what the message said? Touga and I would really like to know..."  
  
Juri's gaze softened, slightly, as it did whenever she looked at the clean and pure face that Miki possessed. But, as usual, she struggled to cover up any softening that she seemed to outwardly be conveying.  
  
"Yes. I have. And all that I have to say is that, Touga, you ought to lay off on forging the messages."  
  
Touga's face flushed with embarrassment and anger. "You would lay the accusation on me that I'm impersonating the one being that may give any of us-all of us-salvation?"  
  
Juri looked back at him slyly. "Perhaps."  
  
Touga pushed his chair back from the table. "Outrageous!"  
  
"Perhaps."  
  
Miki looked back and forth between Touga and Juri worriedly. He disliked it immensely when things became out of control and precarious between the two easily incensed council members, as he never knew what was right to say in such a situation-when they were at all perturbed, saying the wrong thing was measured on a balance of life or death.  
  
Juri's gaze flicked over Miki's troubled features; she held in a short, mirthless laugh.  
  
"But I will say, Touga, that whether you wrote this letter or not..." she looked over at the nearly uncontrolled, red haired President and grinned in a peculiar manner that only increased his anger, "This is something that needs more consideration than what can be given it in one meeting."  
  
"We have time," Touga said curtly.  
  
Miki deftly clicked his stopwatch, face filled with concentration. 17:38:19. It went back into his pocket, his gaze suddenly was anxious again.  
  
"Not enough," Juri stated placidly, leaning back in her chair. For a moment, the white rose on the table-in a delicate, intricately weaving glass vase-caught her eye. It had each petal but one, which lay on the table, alone, separated from its life force.  
  
Touga began to speak, but Juri cut him off. "In a nutshell, this letter details who will be fighting next..." her eyes flicked up, then back. "Touga, it has yourself and Tenjou-kun down. But other than the dueling, it briefs on upcoming events..." her voice broke off unexpectedly. Hell, she hadn't even expected that...anyway, it's not like they knew what it could be connected to. Perhaps Touga did...but he wouldn't have forged any letter, and she knew it, despite her prior accusation. But it felt too strange to lay something bare like that herself by saying it, where anyone could interpret it...god forbid correctly. It would be like laying out all of her necklaces for..."her"...to pick from...and "her" picking the locket. With the picture still tucked inside.  
  
Touga crossed his ankles, stretched out in absolute languor. He opened his eyes as Juri paused. "And the upcoming events detail upon the next champion...but not necessarily in the dueling arena, have you pondered that, perhaps, Arisagawa?"  
  
Juri looked away, green eyes glazed over, orange curls falling in place. "No," she said flatly, voice utterly and completely hollow.  
  
Miki looked with discomfort at the white rose on the table. At least half of its petals had fallen, spread across the table by the wind, some floating away to the school grounds below. It was such a queer knowledge to have...that he was really on top of a school. One that, for that matter, he attended. He often wondered how much of the Student Council's purpose the teachers knew...the façade that was his school did managed to upset him at times.  
  
But then he was grounded in his reality, wide eyes flashing up to Juri's pained face. He could tell that she didn't want Touga to know her wounds, nor him, that she was still licking. He wanted to leap up and protect her, put Touga in his place, try to erase that cold detachment that Juri adopted when in pain, but knew that it wasn't possible...this hurt him. He looked away again, to the rose, as another petal fell to the table.  
  
Touga, however, did not miss his fleeting instant of sympathy. "Kaoru. Anything to say?"  
  
Miki swallowed, looked at Juri's fallen profile apprehensively before beginning. "You could be right. The champion that the message mentions may not have anything to do with the duels. It was a very wide statement...but I don't think that it's really in our place to judge what Ends of the World gives us. Things will come clear, as they proceed. They always do."  
  
Unconscious of the motion, Juri's hand closed around her locket. And that, she thought, is exactly what I'm afraid of. Everything coming clear the way I fear; my secrets laid bare, as they have been before, I suppose. Everything I've fought against during my existence has been defied again and again, and now, it seems, again. Miki's voice rang in her ears, the purity of what he said burned her. Things will come clear...they always do...the champion that the message mentions may not have anything to do with the duels...Juri's hand gave her locket one last squeeze, let her arm loose, and she pushed back her chair, rose to her feet.  
  
"Then there is nothing that we can do but see things through as the Ends of the World would have us do."  
  
She began to walk away, deliberately, perhaps dramatically...the drama in it was that she didn't care anything about the drama or pretense, though. Until Touga's voice froze her in her spot.  
  
"By the way, Arisagawa..." he drawled, "What happened to that lost love of yours?"  
  
Juri didn't even look back, let alone give him the pleasure of a broken response...she resumed walking, tried to keep her steady pace until she reached the elevator, where she dropped to the floor and collapsed in torrential, burning tears that she had not indulged herself in for so long.  
  
The last petal that had been hanging from the white rose fell, was swept away by the wind to the grounds below. 


	2. Bloodied Wings

It was nighttime-again. She knew that it meant nothing more than nighttime ever did, which was generally a chance to mourn old sorrows and indulge in grief. The entire concept sickened and irritated her-the thought that she was beholden to something, even if that something was the cool relief of night-she didn't much like to think about it. Let alone what it was that bothered her. But seeming as it was inescapable, and as already halcyon images of her past that had been oh-so-wrong even then, she slipped on a nightgown and left her dorm.  
  
She felt lost, mainly, and strangely self-conscious as her darkened wet locks of hair began to soak the light nightdress. She shivered as a breeze passed and as she realized that already the thin material was sticking to her moist skin, yet did not disregard the refreshing relief that she felt by being so free, so alone, so...at peace? Almost as a reflex, she brought back images of Shiori to quell her happiness and create that dull reassuring ache in her heart that reminded her that she was alive and had no right, in fact, to be happy. At first the reflex had sickened her, she had found it atrociously grotesque, but now she had accepted it. She would never be free of that which haunted her, even if her capture by these thoughts that she so longed to lay to rest were brought back up by the side of her that would not grant her peace, and not in fact by her fickle subconscious.  
  
And so, lost and lonely, she began to walk to the fountain where long ago (as it seemed now-time had a curious way of bending the laws at Ohtori) she had tried to take Tenjou's ring...even now she shuddered thinking of how the girl still wore it as a gaudy token of a false love. Utena disgusted her with her happy-go-luckiness and optimism, and also her innocence and naïveté. She stood for joy, something that Juri had once tried to comprehend and pursue for herself but was kicked down brutally for, and she had never been able to pick up the pieces since. And now...now was nothing. Nothing was everything. Perhaps it was her fatalistic views that had corrupted her so and made her almost masochistic in her yearning for Shiori, but she wasn't seeking to explain it. She wasn't seeking to even acknowledge it-all that she desired was separation from everything that she was beholden to...even the body that held her. If only, for once, she could fly on the ethereal wings of dream, and never have to touch back to the filth that clung to her in this earthly realm. As she felt the cold cobblestone curve beneath her bare feet, she felt a mad urge to scream, to kill herself and what she stood for, and to take the opportunity to be absolved for eternity. Everything called for her attention, nothing was her desire. Her wings of dream would be shot down, she would fall, her bloodied wings now only hampering her existence, and she would fall face first into the filth that she had so sought to escape. This was life-had anyone told her that there was anything else, she wouldn't have listened; would have laughed in their optimistic faces or lash out, letting them touch her cold existence as it was. Like she did with Tenjou. Like she did with Himemiya. Like she did with anyone who held such a blind love of everything, without any comprehension of reality! When once she would have found the cup half full, and later half empty, she only saw it as containing 50% of its potential capacity. She was a realist-she had already resigned herself to the no-frills, no-pleasure existence that the birth-life-death sequence of things had brought. There was no hope, let alone miracles. There were no miracles, and there never would be. There was no Divine Influence. Ends of the World was an illusion; so was the Student Council's pursuits-there was nothing to live for for her or anyone else. But strangely, something tied her to the Student Council; something bound her to this disgusting existence. Something that she could not put a finger on. There was something that held her to her twisted fate.  
  
She realized that she was already at the fountain, sprawled back against the side of it, her arms behind her head, the rest of her practically bare body flat against the cold, smooth concrete. She laughed dryly; imagine if someone saw her now? Imagine...if they could feel the cold stone beneath her, the cold air from the water besides her, the cool refresher that had suddenly began to lift from her all of her cares? For once in her actuality she felt free, beholden to nothing, for once she felt divine. Not wanting to lose the curiously phenomenal feeling to her fatalistic comprehension, she rolled over on her side, and shuddered with pleasure as her body dropped into the shallow, icy water. She felt true joy tingle up her back as she felt herself numb, leapt up, dancing in the water; the thin fabric of her dress hugging her nubile curves, revealing her darkened nipples. A queer joy and freedom like she had never experienced, even as a child, crept through her veins, rushing through her heart. Although she had just showered, she stood underneath the icy water that gushed down from the fountain, feeling every care that she had ever had fly away, if only temporarily. She spun underneath the deluge of water, shivered as the cold winds hit her saturated dress which held so tightly to her. When had these fears that she had held for so long accumulated...why? Somehow everything on this world that had cursed her was gone; she felt the wings of dream carrying her through her blood red walls that contained her mind to the pale blue of eternal life. Finally, she was above it all. Suddenly, to her immense and obscene surprise, a bud of hope had begun to break from the surface of her fears and liabilities, glowing orange with new hope; she looking admiringly at her curls which glistened in the moonlight.  
  
She saw it out of the corner of her eye, and suddenly she felt the swords being hurled at her wings and not being able to dodge them. They were pierced, her heart fell, the bud rotted away to oblivion, and she fell back to the filth that had so entrenched her before.  
  
On the edge of the fountain that could have now poured blood lay a mauve rose entwined with a pink rose...something that she honestly could not comprehend, but brought back a deluge of pain that she thought had finally left her.  
  
Then she heard the giggle. At first one. And then another. Both incredibly feminine, yet incredibly varied. One was naïve, bubbly; the other cruelly innocent, with a tinge of lust. Juri's face paled, she felt nausea rush through her and her eyes begin to water.  
  
The bushes moved. Rustled again; Juri's entire body felt as though it were melting as she could only stare with horror. Another rustle.  
  
Then her keen, distrusting eyes saw a lock of pink hair caught between the closely entwined branches of the bush, and then heard a murmur and saw a hand reach up and untangle it, drawing it back into the enclosure. Juri's eyes began to narrow. But then they were wide open, threatening to flood. From the other side, she saw the foot. Pale, delicate, ethereal. With artfully painted toenails...painted red, in fact. Juri fought the urge to vomit, melt, and burst into tears all at the same time, and backed away from the scene as best she could, feeling her feet meeting the rough concrete siding of the fountain. Wordlessly, shakily, she lifted her right foot, felt her way over the short wall, then as it touched down she lifted her right foot, backed finally out of the pool.  
  
With one last, wild, miserable glance, she looked back at the bushes, where suddenly the foot withdrew with an accompanying moan, and then she turned and ran, fighting back tears and then finally giving into their hot regret once again as she rushed back to her dorm where she could sleep it all away. 


End file.
